Living with XY Chromosomes

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  • My son observed that there was no gender difference between the clever boys and girls at his school (state comprehensive), the difference was between the less academically able. Girls would still come to school to socialise with their friends and would generally pick up some qualifications; the boys would truant and leave with nothing.

    Allied to this, it seems to me that poor academic results are not disastrous for girls, who can progress onto a college course in childcare or beauty therapy with remarkably little in the way of formal qualifications, and from thence into work; there is no shortage of jobs in childcare.
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    My son observed that there was no gender difference between the clever boys and girls at his school (state comprehensive), the difference was between the less academically able. Girls would still come to school to socialise with their friends and would generally pick up some qualifications; the boys would truant and leave with nothing.

    Allied to this, it seems to me that poor academic results are not disastrous for girls, who can progress onto a college course in childcare or beauty therapy with remarkably little in the way of formal qualifications, and from thence into work; there is no shortage of jobs in childcare.
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.

    I'd like to know more. UK data?

    Thanks

    Asher
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    My son observed that there was no gender difference between the clever boys and girls at his school (state comprehensive), the difference was between the less academically able. Girls would still come to school to socialise with their friends and would generally pick up some qualifications; the boys would truant and leave with nothing.

    Allied to this, it seems to me that poor academic results are not disastrous for girls, who can progress onto a college course in childcare or beauty therapy with remarkably little in the way of formal qualifications, and from thence into work; there is no shortage of jobs in childcare.
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.

    UK data herehttps://officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/differences-in-student-outcomes/

    Does not support you on gender. Ethnicity data is worth a look.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    A great thread to be confronted with non-explained acronyms - FE, for example, where a search starts by referring to iron.
  • FE = Further education. Post secondary school education.

    I can remember a thread in which the word "college" created cross Pond confusion.
    College and university are different - colleges teach more vocational, less academic subjects than universities (this applies to stand-alone colleges, not to a college within a university) .

  • @asher, I believe there is now a clear gap between boys and girls at degree level too.
  • FE = Further education. Post secondary school education.

    I can remember a thread in which the word "college" created cross Pond confusion.
    College and university are different - colleges teach more vocational, less academic subjects than universities (this applies to stand-alone colleges, not to a college within a university) .

    ... on your side of the pond...

    On ours, the only difference is that a university has a graduate school attached to it. The undergraduate education can stay exactly the same, but as soon as they start up offering their first master's degree, they can rename themselves X University instead of X College.

    Vocational schools here tend to be called trade schools or X Technical.
  • asher wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    My son observed that there was no gender difference between the clever boys and girls at his school (state comprehensive), the difference was between the less academically able. Girls would still come to school to socialise with their friends and would generally pick up some qualifications; the boys would truant and leave with nothing.

    Allied to this, it seems to me that poor academic results are not disastrous for girls, who can progress onto a college course in childcare or beauty therapy with remarkably little in the way of formal qualifications, and from thence into work; there is no shortage of jobs in childcare.
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.

    UK data herehttps://officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/differences-in-student-outcomes/

    Does not support you on gender. Ethnicity data is worth a look.
    It doesn't address what I am saying. The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.
    I don't believe that the feedback loop necessary to make that argument work, is there. That is, if a school-age girl was as aware of the world as you are, she might make the choices which you know would help her out in a difficult jobs market - but she's 14, 16, or 18, and she (typically) doesn't know, and (typically) doesn't want know. I'm confident in this view because I know how universities conspire in the vanities of 16,17 yr old course-choosers, in laying on courses which will attract them and their course fees but which will leave them perilously unprepared for the jobs market - and I see how tightly the self-delusion is held by the student at university, where the proximity of employment might be expected to provide feedback at strength enough to encourage the kind of reflection your argument looks for in school children. I don't see it in 18-21 yr olds, which is a great shame as it enables their exploitation.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    Having taught 15 year olds, I am very skeptical that 15 year olds of either or any sex think about such things.
  • FE = Further education. Post secondary school education.

    I can remember a thread in which the word "college" created cross Pond confusion.
    College and university are different - colleges teach more vocational, less academic subjects than universities (this applies to stand-alone colleges, not to a college within a university) .

    ... on your side of the pond...

    On ours, the only difference is that a university has a graduate school attached to it. The undergraduate education can stay exactly the same, but as soon as they start up offering their first master's degree, they can rename themselves X University instead of X College.
    Would that it were so straightforward.

    Theoretically, a university (as used in the US) has more than one college or school, and theoretically, at least one of those schools offers doctoral degrees, or at least master’s degrees. That may be an undergraduate college and a graduate school, or it could two colleges and/or schools that offer undergraduate and graduate degrees. (I was a student in a university’s school of music, and that school of music offered bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.)

    As with many things, though, there is no uniformity. My understanding is that some states do actually have criteria that must be met before an institution may call itself a university, such as a minimum number of doctoral degrees offered, or perhaps research activities. Around here, though, quite a few colleges have renamed themselves universities, even though they have but one school, offer only baccalaureate degrees and do not engage in any research.

    And then there are those universities that that have multiple colleges and schools, including grad schools, and that offer doctoral degrees, but that choose to call themselves “college”—Dartmouth College comes to mind.

    Vocational schools here tend to be called trade schools or X Technical.
    Or community colleges, but even that term can mean different things in different parts of the US.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    FE = Further education. Post secondary school education.

    I can remember a thread in which the word "college" created cross Pond confusion.
    College and university are different - colleges teach more vocational, less academic subjects than universities (this applies to stand-alone colleges, not to a college within a university) .

    Thanks for that. Colleges here refer to a range of establishments. Apart from residential colleges at universities, they used include technical colleges, those in the sense you describe. Those continue, but are also now often referred to just as TAFE - Technical and Further Education - with or without the College added. Then the Whitlam years saw Colleges of Advanced Education established, more academic than the TAFEs but not to university standards. Those colleges over time became universities. Last of all, quite a few private secondary schools include College in their name. For example, the name of a top-rank* Jesuit school is strictly speaking St Ignatius College Riverview, usually just Riverview or View.

    *Not sure today, but a couple of years ago, a third of the judges of the NSW Supreme Court had been there for at least their secondary education.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    asher wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    My son observed that there was no gender difference between the clever boys and girls at his school (state comprehensive), the difference was between the less academically able. Girls would still come to school to socialise with their friends and would generally pick up some qualifications; the boys would truant and leave with nothing.

    Allied to this, it seems to me that poor academic results are not disastrous for girls, who can progress onto a college course in childcare or beauty therapy with remarkably little in the way of formal qualifications, and from thence into work; there is no shortage of jobs in childcare.
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.

    UK data herehttps://officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/differences-in-student-outcomes/

    Does not support you on gender. Ethnicity data is worth a look.
    It doesn't address what I am saying. The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    You said jobs market. You've now changed to workplace. I thought the data was useful, and does not support you on women needing higher equals to attain high skill employment.

    Please show me your data sources

    Asher
  • asher wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    asher wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    My son observed that there was no gender difference between the clever boys and girls at his school (state comprehensive), the difference was between the less academically able. Girls would still come to school to socialise with their friends and would generally pick up some qualifications; the boys would truant and leave with nothing.

    Allied to this, it seems to me that poor academic results are not disastrous for girls, who can progress onto a college course in childcare or beauty therapy with remarkably little in the way of formal qualifications, and from thence into work; there is no shortage of jobs in childcare.
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.

    UK data herehttps://officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/differences-in-student-outcomes/

    Does not support you on gender. Ethnicity data is worth a look.
    It doesn't address what I am saying. The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    You said jobs market. You've now changed to workplace. I thought the data was useful, and does not support you on women needing higher equals to attain high skill employment.

    Please show me your data sources

    Asher
    From your data:
    Among female graduates, 73 per cent are in highly skilled employment or study compared with 72 per cent of male graduates. This gap has increased slightly from 0.2 percentage points in 2013-14 to 1.0 percentage points in 2015-16.

    This difference is not consistent when degree classification is taken into account. Those male graduates gaining a first class degree are 1.8 percentage points more likely to be in highly skilled employment or further study than female graduates.
    Bold mine.

    And you've never heard of the glass ceiling?

  • mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    Having taught 15 year olds, I am very skeptical that 15 year olds of either or any sex think about such things.
    I did. Some of my mates did as well, we had those conversations. Just not so often with adults.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    asher wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    asher wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    My son observed that there was no gender difference between the clever boys and girls at his school (state comprehensive), the difference was between the less academically able. Girls would still come to school to socialise with their friends and would generally pick up some qualifications; the boys would truant and leave with nothing.

    Allied to this, it seems to me that poor academic results are not disastrous for girls, who can progress onto a college course in childcare or beauty therapy with remarkably little in the way of formal qualifications, and from thence into work; there is no shortage of jobs in childcare.
    I think outcomes are part of the issue.
    Because the jobs market is tougher for women, education has more value.

    UK data herehttps://officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/differences-in-student-outcomes/

    Does not support you on gender. Ethnicity data is worth a look.
    It doesn't address what I am saying. The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    You said jobs market. You've now changed to workplace. I thought the data was useful, and does not support you on women needing higher equals to attain high skill employment.

    Please show me your data sources

    Asher
    From your data:
    Among female graduates, 73 per cent are in highly skilled employment or study compared with 72 per cent of male graduates. This gap has increased slightly from 0.2 percentage points in 2013-14 to 1.0 percentage points in 2015-16.

    This difference is not consistent when degree classification is taken into account. Those male graduates gaining a first class degree are 1.8 percentage points more likely to be in highly skilled employment or further study than female graduates.
    Bold mine.

    And you've never heard of the glass ceiling?

    Thanks for this. Looking at the graph just below the quote you used, the picture is less than simple in terms of graduates securing highly skilled work by degree grade obtained.

    First class degree 1.8% difference in proportion in highly skilled employment in favour of men.

    2:1 1% in favour of women.

    2.2 3% in favour of women

    3rd class degree 5% in favour of women.

    My recent posts have been talking about the education system and bias revealed in outcomes. In the light of that, I interpreted your reply to me about the jobs market as being the job market for graduates.

    Cheers

    Asher

  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    Having taught 15 year olds, I am very skeptical that 15 year olds of either or any sex think about such things.
    I did. Some of my mates did as well, we had those conversations. Just not so often with adults.

    Anecdotal evidence. Case dismissed.
  • @lilbuddha got a question for you.

    I've set out clear data showing that boys are performing significantly lower than girls at all stages of education in the UK. And it is getting worse.

    Are you OK with that?
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    It doesn't address what I am saying. The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    That would assume a degree of forward thinking that IME is unusual in early teens. So I agree with mousethief on this one.

    (Sure - some kids have these conversations, but IME they aren't the norm, and the kids that are making plans at this age are good students anyway.)
  • mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    Having taught 15 year olds, I am very skeptical that 15 year olds of either or any sex think about such things.
    I did. Some of my mates did as well, we had those conversations. Just not so often with adults.

    Anecdotal evidence. Case dismissed.
    Yours is an anecdotal statement, so...
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    Having taught 15 year olds, I am very skeptical that 15 year olds of either or any sex think about such things.
    I did. Some of my mates did as well, we had those conversations. Just not so often with adults.

    Anecdotal evidence. Case dismissed.
    Yours is an anecdotal statement, so...

    Fair. Mine is based on a hell of a lot more data than yours, however. My own observation and that of many teachers I have worked with. Compared to you and one or two of your friends who were clearly on the bright and motivated end of the spectrum.
  • GwaiGwai Epiphanies Host
    Okay, was trying not to post, so I could host this but I am giving up on being quite before I start treating my cat to rants. Is there any evidence children don't plan their future? The only middle schooler I know definitely is thinking about how to pay for college. I know because she's asked me questions. She's decided she won't get rich on her chosen field and is okay with it. Her plans may change 85 times before she gets to the grad school part of her plans, if she does. But she's certainly made these plans, and she certainly is thinking about the financial aspects with the rest of them! It could be my kid is a modern miracle of practicality. But I really rather doubt it.

    And to get slightly more directly on topic, said middle schooler also knows that science--her chosen field right now--will be harder for a woman. Whatever she becomes, I think her determination in the face of some challenges will be a major asset to her success. I think that white boys don't always learn to conquer despite challenges because their race and gender are an asset to them. I think boys of color are often crushed by the level of opposition they see. While many white women get opposition but enough to get their dander up not enough to crush them, so they do well. (Women of color may fit into this theory, but I am not addressing them because I do not know enough.)
  • One hypothesis which fits the anecdata thus far is that, as a broad generalisation, white boys don't think about and plan their future at a young age, whereas other groups do.

    Another hypothesis is that the more academic are more inclined to do so than the less academic students.

    Both, IME, have some validity as broad generalisations. But it's broad generalisations which are realised in broad measures of outcome.
  • Gwai wrote: »
    Okay, was trying not to post, so I could host this but I am giving up on being quite before I start treating my cat to rants. Is there any evidence children don't plan their future? The only middle schooler I know definitely is thinking about how to pay for college. I know because she's asked me questions. She's decided she won't get rich on her chosen field and is okay with it. Her plans may change 85 times before she gets to the grad school part of her plans, if she does. But she's certainly made these plans, and she certainly is thinking about the financial aspects with the rest of them! It could be my kid is a modern miracle of practicality. But I really rather doubt it.

    And to get slightly more directly on topic, said middle schooler also knows that science--her chosen field right now--will be harder for a woman. Whatever she becomes, I think her determination in the face of some challenges will be a major asset to her success. I think that white boys don't always learn to conquer despite challenges because their race and gender are an asset to them. I think boys of color are often crushed by the level of opposition they see. While many white women get opposition but enough to get their dander up not enough to crush them, so they do well. (Women of color may fit into this theory, but I am not addressing them because I do not know enough.)
    Black girls are beat down by general society to a lesser degree than are black males.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    The workplace discriminates against women. Women need higher qualifications to begin to compete.
    Perhaps this is part of the incentive for girls to try harder.

    Having taught 15 year olds, I am very skeptical that 15 year olds of either or any sex think about such things.
    I did. Some of my mates did as well, we had those conversations. Just not so often with adults.

    Anecdotal evidence. Case dismissed.
    Yours is an anecdotal statement, so...

    Fair. Mine is based on a hell of a lot more data than yours, however. My own observation and that of many teachers I have worked with. Compared to you and one or two of your friends who were clearly on the bright and motivated end of the spectrum.
    Not to say I'm correct and you are not, but it is not that simple or clear.
    For one, teens do not talk to adults openly and completely. What you observe is not the completeness of your students. Another thing is that whilst teens are not miniature, slightly less experienced adults, neither are they the simplistic, locked into their teen world creatures adults often assume they are. There is more general awareness of the world and certainly more influence from it than often acknowledged.
  • There was a brief Sci Fi tangentish thing that I can't find. Someone was waxing lyrical about Dune, in an obviously geekish and yet poetic manner. I found myself in a 2nd hand bookshop today and purchased Paul of Dune, Prelude to Dune: House Corrino and Prelude to Dune: House Harkonnen. This was their entire stock. I now intend to go visit my mother and see if I can find my copies of the Frank Herbert output I read in the 1980's.

    WHAT WE SAY HERE HAS CONSEQUENCES, PEOPLE.
  • goperryrevsgoperryrevs Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    WHAT WE SAY HERE HAS CONSEQUENCES, PEOPLE.
    Soz boss. 'Twas me.

    Don't read Corrino & Harkonnen until you've read Atreides. It's a trilogy. Paul is standalone though.
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Ohhh, that takes me back! Loved the series, but don’t think I can go there again now 😅.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    The Dune "prequels" are vastly different from the Frank Herbert original creations. They're equivalent of what "midichlorians" were for Star Wars: unnecessary and unsatisfying explanations that actually subtract from the fascination.

    Honestly, it was like literary mansplaining.
  • There are only three Dune books, much like there is only one Matrix film.
  • @RooK, I don’t disagree. But, @Doc Tor, no way! God Emperor is my favourite Dune book other than the original.
  • @RooK, I don’t disagree. But, @Doc Tor, no way! God Emperor is my favourite Dune book other than the original.

    It would be an unreasonable use of my newly-acquired powers to ban you for such heresy.
  • LouiseLouise Epiphanies Host
    Can people take the Dune tangent elsewhere?
    Ta!
    Louise
    Epiphanies Host
  • edited February 2020
    (Err...obsessive interest in / knowledge of the minutiae of SF, and possession of XY Chromosomes, might not always be regarded as tangential :smile: )

    ((That's a joke, before someone sends me to the Styx :smiley: ))
  • Meanwhile, in the teeth of storm Ciara, I joined a bunch of (very very largely, but not quite entirely) men for this. Followed next morning by this!
  • (Err...obsessive interest in / knowledge of the minutiae of SF, and possession of XY Chromosomes, might not always be regarded as tangential :smile: )

    ((That's a joke, before someone sends me to the Styx :smiley: ))
    One of the contenders for first science fiction novel, and certainly one of the most enduring, was written by a woman. Women authors have largely been excluded by publishers, leading to fewer female readers.
    Culture, rather than chromosomes, drive the disparity.
  • > Women authors have largely been excluded by publishers, leading to fewer female readers.

    That's an interesting tangent. Do women prefer to read work by women?
  • GwaiGwai Epiphanies Host
    edited February 2020
    Many of us like that work does not involve no depictions of ourselves or absolutely terrible depictions of ourselves. I have never seen a book by a famous woman that involved the hero literally having to make a male sex robot so he could fuck it as a way to save the world. However, that is a real example (with switched genders) from an old traditional sci fi book. It was the only "female" character in that book thus far. (I stopped at that point, so I do not know whether any other females appeared.) No women or just damsels in distress was typical from men writing old science fiction. For instance, the best depiction of a woman I can think of in Asimov is Susan Calvin who is written as a frigid bitch no one could ever love.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Women authors have largely been excluded by publishers, leading to fewer female readers.

    Not entirely excluded, though publishers often insisted on women publishing under male pseudonyms or using gender-ambiguous initials rather than a traditionally-female given name.
  • Crœsos wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Women authors have largely been excluded by publishers, leading to fewer female readers.

    Not entirely excluded, though publishers often insisted on women publishing under male pseudonyms or using gender-ambiguous initials rather than a traditionally-female given name.
    Which is kinda the same thing.
  • > Women authors have largely been excluded by publishers, leading to fewer female readers.

    That's an interesting tangent. Do women prefer to read work by women?
    As Gwai says, female characters written by men rarely accurately represent women. Women, my male authors in general, but it feels even more so in sci-fi, are accessories to the male characters. Or motivations, rarely are they characters in and of themselves.
    Because men largely excluded women from participating, many men feel sci-fi is theirs. Hence the antipathy towards women becoming involved in it.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    There is a group known as the "Sad Puppies" who are reactionary jackasses that tried to manipulate the Hugo awards selection and voting process to better exclude women and minorities represented in Science Fiction. Good work was done to counter their efforts, but the very existence of such a group is nauseating.
  • I read the stuff voraciously in my teens. This involved lurking in the library on a Saturday until Barry, who had an arrangement with one of the librarians (the only girl he was known to converse with) to have the new Gollancz books first, brought them back, at which point I pounced on the returned books shelf. As I had grown up identifying with any interesting character regardless of gender, the male protagonists and the absence of active females were not a problem. (The covers of paperbacks could be problematic, though - the engineering of women's underclothes was ridiculous.) Until I met one male whose relationship with a woman involved - nah, I'm not going there in detail, but it was gross. That one writer closed off the genre, because I could no longer be sure what I was going to meet.
    I now know that a lot of what was going on was extrapolation from current events - totally missed me about exploitation of resources, mining corporations, exploitation of other nations and such like. There was good stuff going on there, and absence of women was an irrelevance. Mind you, some of it was a not good. I have recently recycled Eric Frank Russell because of a racist anti-Chinese piece. (Taking over the galaxy while still managing nothing more technical than laundry!)
  • > Women authors have largely been excluded by publishers, leading to fewer female readers.

    That's an interesting tangent. Do women prefer to read work by women?

    I read more fantasy than sf, although I read both. I find that more than half of the books that I actually own (rather than just borrowing from the library) are written by women.

    So I'm a man, and I appear to prefer work by women. Possibly because they're more character-driven?
  • @Leorning Cniht
    For me it is that the more characters get developed. The women are more real and the men remain real. Within the talents of the authors, of course. And because the market is so much tougher for female authors, the dross stands little chance, so the odds of the product being good are higher.
    In most genres, that is.
  • Well, now. UK SFF is mostly run by women. I have had three out of thirteen novels edited by men. Most SFF editors are women. Most SFF publicists are women.

    Of the last SFF books I've read:
    Jeff Vandemeer - Annihilation. Narrator is female, all 4 protagonists were female.
    Matt Hill - Zero Bomb. 3 protagonists, each taking a third of the book. 1 male, 2 female.
    Simon Jimenez - The Vanished Birds. 2 protagonists, both female.
    Danny Tobey - The God Game. 4 protagonists, 3 male and 1 female

    Currently reading: SE Moorhead - Witness X. Female protagonist. (Author is a woman)

    Respectfully, I contend that you are working off false assumptions. Especially and including that men can't write convincing female characters.
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Respectfully, I contend that you are working off false assumptions. Especially and including that men can't write convincing female characters.

    Let's re-work that to be a hypothesis, then:
    "Males clinging to classic ideals of 'maleness' tend to have limited understanding of other personalities - especially females."

    Testing that hypothesis with a broad selection of classic SF:
    "Yeah, maybe."

    Fortunately, that's not all there is to the genre - being mindful that's a tangent we've been warned away from.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Well, now. UK SFF is mostly run by women. I have had three out of thirteen novels edited by men. Most SFF editors are women. Most SFF publicists are women.

    Of the last SFF books I've read:
    Jeff Vandemeer - Annihilation. Narrator is female, all 4 protagonists were female.
    Matt Hill - Zero Bomb. 3 protagonists, each taking a third of the book. 1 male, 2 female.
    Simon Jimenez - The Vanished Birds. 2 protagonists, both female.
    Danny Tobey - The God Game. 4 protagonists, 3 male and 1 female
    All male authors. Never said male authors don't put females into their books.
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Currently reading: SE Moorhead - Witness X. Female protagonist. (Author is a woman)

    Respectfully, I contend that you are working off false assumptions. Especially and including that men can't write convincing female characters.
    Never said men cannot write convincing female characters. Just that they often don't. I'd argue that in sci-fi and fantasy, the bulk of female characters are poorly written and under-written. That some men can manage to do so doesn't change this.
    Regarding assumptions, you are party correct. I did some searching and found two related articles of note. Link 1 Link 2
    For those unwilling to read the links, it seems that early sci-fi (the pulp era) was more female author friendly, but that backlash against first-wave feminism changed this. And John Campbell, the shaper of science fiction for a time, was racist and sexist. Currently about 30% of authors are female. Which is more than I thought, but hardy domination.

    Adding:And I respectfully contend that you, as a man, are not necessarily the proper judge of whether a female character is well written. I give that you can judge whether a character feels real or not, and that some characters do not need an explicit male or female reading. But when that does matter, rare is the man who understands the nuances.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    I don’t think anyone suggested that UK SFF was dominated by male authors. The point being made as the extent to which it may or may not be run by women given their role as editors and publicists.

    The fact that about 40% of authors are female foes tend to suggest it is no longer the case that women authors are no longer largely excluded by publishers.

    As for knowing whether a character is true to life, while it may be broadly true that a person of one gender is ill-places to judge the verisimilitude of a character of another gender it is too much of a generalisation to be applied to any individual person. And if we take that line with gender what then are we to say about race, sexuality, class or historical or national background?

    Where is the point at which the critic’s own social or cultural background prevents them assessing whether a character is well-drawn or not?
  • Some critics (and authors) can't tell "well-drawn" from a hole in the ground, regardless of backgrounds. Some can. But should we take this tangent elsewhere?
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